Sydney Smith playfully says that common sense was invented by Socrates, that philosopher having been one of its most conspicuous exemplars in conducting the contest of practical sagacity against stupid prejudice and illusory beliefs. — Edwin Percy Whipple Copy Share Image
In most old communities there is a common sense even in sensuality. Vice itself gets gradually digested into a system, is amenable to certain laws of conventional propriety and honor, has for its object simply the gratification of its appetites,… — Edwin Percy Whipple Copy Share Image
Cheerfulness in most cheerful people is the rich and satisfying result of strenuous discipline. — Edwin Percy Whipple Copy Share Image
A true teacher should penetrate to whatever is vital in his pupil, and develop that by the light and heat of his own intelligence. — Edwin Percy Whipple Copy Share Image
A politician weakly and amiably in the right is no match for a politician tenaciously and pugnaciously in the wrong. You cannot, by tying… — Edwin Percy Whipple Copy Share Image
A thought embodied and embrained in fit words walks the earth a living being. — Edwin Percy Whipple Copy Share Image
Nature and society are so replete with startling contrasts that wit often consists in the mere statement and comparison of facts, as when Hume… — Edwin Percy Whipple Copy Share Image
The bitterest satires and noblest eulogies on married life have come from poets. — Edwin Percy Whipple Copy Share Image
Genius is not a single power, but a combination of great powers. It reasons, but it is not reasoning; it judges, but it is… — Edwin Percy Whipple Copy Share Image
Nature does not capriciously scatter her secrets as golden gifts to lazy pets and luxurious darlings, but imposes tasks when she presents opportunities, and… — Edwin Percy Whipple Copy Share Image
Even in social life, it is persistency which attracts confidence, more than talents and accomplishments. — Edwin Percy Whipple Copy Share Image
A nation may be in a tumult to-day for a thought which the timid Erasmus placidly penned in his study more than two centuries… — Edwin Percy Whipple Copy Share Image
